"Hi!" Ramsay said.
The deck hand chuckled. "Boy, I thought you were in trouble sure when
you were ruckusin' with old Devil Chad."
"Devil Chad?"
"Yeah. The one who told you to help load hides. He'd of cleaned the deck
with you."
"Maybe he would," Ramsay said. "And then again, maybe he wouldn't."
"He would," the deck hand asserted. "He can lick anybody or anything.
Owns half the country 'round here, he does, includin' most of the
_Holter_. What's more, he aims to keep it. One of the richest men in
Wisconsin."
"Quite a man," Ramsay said drily.
"Yeah, an' quite a fighter. On'y reason he didn't clean your clock was
on account Captain Schultz told him you was a payin' passenger. Devil
Chad, he gets half the fare every passenger on the _Holter_ pays, he
does."
Ramsay knew a rising irritation. "What makes you so sure he can't be cut
down to size?"
"Never has been, never will be," the deck hand asserted. He regarded the
surging lake morosely, and then said, "One of these days this old tub is
goin' to end up right at the bottom of Michigan, it is. Either that or
on the beach. Wish I was some'res else."
"Why don't you go somewhere else?"
"One of these days I will," the deck hand threatened. "I'll just haul
off an' go back to the ocean boats, I will. I was on 'em for fourteen
years, an' quit to come here on account I got scar't of storms at sea.
Ha! Worstest thing I ever see on the Atlantic ain't nothin' to what this
lake can throw at you."
"Is it really that bad?" Ramsay asked eagerly.
"Bad?" the deck hand said. "Boy, I've seen waves here taller'n a ship.
In course nobody ever goes out when it's that bad on account, if they
did, nobody'd ever get back." He scanned the horizon. "We're goin' to
hit weather afore we ever gets to Three Points. Goin' to hit it sure.
Wish this old tub wasn't loaded so heavy, an' with hides at that."
A wave struck the bow, crested and broke in foaming spray that cast
itself up and over the ship. Ramsay felt it, cool on his face, and he
licked eager lips. Lake Michigan was fresh water, not salt like the
ocean, and it was as pure as an ice-cold artesian well. It was also, he
thought, almost as cold.
He looked into the clouded horizon, studying the storm that battered the
_Holter_. He smiled to himself.
Suddenly he became all eager interest, peering out into the driving
waves and focusing his attention on one place. He thought he had seen
something there, but because of the angry lake he could not be sure. It
might have been just a drifting shadow, or just one more of the dark
waves which seemed to fill the lake and to be of all shades. Then, and
plainly, he saw it again.
It was a boat, a little boat no more than twenty-four feet from bowsprit
to stern, and it was carrying almost a full load of sail as it tacked
back and forth into the wind. Ramsay had not seen the sails because,
when he first spotted the boat, it had been heeled over so far that the
sails did not show. Now they were showing and full, and the little boat
sailed like a proud swan with its wings spread.
Ramsay forgot the _Holter_, the man beside him and everything else save
the little boat. The _Holter_ and nothing on it, with the possible
exception of the little black horse, was even remotely interesting. But
this was. Ramsay breathed a sigh of relief.
He should have known. He should have understood from the first that,
when any water was as mighty and as exciting as Lake Michigan, there
would be some to meet its challenge with daring, grace and spirit. The
tiny craft was a mere cockleshell of a boat, a ridiculously small thing
with which to venture upon such a water, but Ramsay could not help
feeling that it would be much better to sail on the little boat than on
the _Holter_.
He kept fascinated eyes on it as it tacked back into the wind. Again it
heeled over, so far that it was almost hidden in the trough of a vast
wave. Saucily, jauntily it bobbed up again.
The _Holter_, that workhorse of the water, plodded stolidly on its
appointed way. Ramsay continued to watch the little boat, and now they
were near enough so that he could see its crew of four. He gasped
involuntarily.
Working into the wind, the little boat was coming back, and its course
took it directly across the _Holter's_ right of way. Ramsay clenched his
fingers and bit his lip fiercely. A collision seemed inevitable.
Wide-eyed, he watched the little boat.
Now he saw its name, not painted on with stencils but written in a fine,
free-flowing script, _Spray_, and the carved Valkyrie maiden that was
its figurehead. A big gull, obviously its tame one, sat on the very top
of the mast and flapped its wings. The _Spray_ had a crew of four, but
Ramsay concentrated on just one of them.
He was huge, fully as tall as the black beard who had accosted Ramsay
and just as heavy, but he was a different kind of man. He balanced on
his little boat's swaying deck with all the grace of a dancer, while he
clung almost carelessly to a line that ran through a pulley.
No inch of the man's shirt and trousers, which were all the clothing he
wore, for he was bare-footed, remained dry, and the shaggy blond curls
that carpeted his head were dripping. White teeth gleamed as he looked
up at the _Holter_ and laughed. Ramsay leaned forward excitedly. He
warmed to this man, even as he had been repelled by the black beard the
deck hand called Devil Chad. The man on the boat was gay and spirited,
and he seemed complete master of everything about him.
The deck hand put cupped hands to his mouth and screamed, "Sheer off!
Sheer off!"